Shattered Dreams: Rise of KRAD
by waddledee1013
Summary: Leber was once a war hero who fought for the KRAD Union, now doomed to wander and reminisce among the ruins of the past. He reluctantly joins a band of freedom fighters, determined to make amends. Leber is their last hope to stop KRAD as it schemes for world domination. As the unlikely individuals stage their final stand, their world as they know it is about to change forever.
1. Prologue: What Am I?

Shattered Dreams: The Reign of KRAD

How do we know if the world has been lost in the past? How do we know where the future is ready to take us? How do we know if we are headed in the wrong direction? We have so many questions about our kind, and our unanswered past has been largely left in ruin. Left amongst the amazing technological prowess of our great community, a federation of seven states, we are left with coexistence to spread to our people. I still ponder the reasons for which we exist.

This harkens back to a time where there was no hope in our midst when strange visitors arrived in what had become of the third world ever since the great massacres. The ominous visitants charismatically established themselves as the Union of the Ktenological Representamen of Abstergent Disillusionment, or KRAD Union, whose origins have never been heard of. They were to be the hope for our people as chaos oscillates its ugly head, against the disillusioned, defined by their impunity and arrogance in the light of malevolent destruction. Reality is truly an anomalous state of mind, beyond verisimilitude.

Our divided world was lost at a standstill of civil unrest and corruption until the liberators came to aid in our favor. Our governments and millions of our people peacefully supported their influence with great approbation in exchange for the allocation and logistics of resources toward benefiting their cause. I never had managed to voice my opinion about this matter, because I thought in the back of my shrouded mind that we had made a mistake. The secretive passing of the charter by the KRAD leadership grew into a set of laws in promoting that the future was calling and they were the answer. Not much is known about them. All we know is that we are caught in the middle. All they proclaimed was their grim belief in a world where intimidation and fear were of no trifling matter, and everyone had to join their side to be safe from disaster, a peace through power to even the odds in a growing conflict where sides did not matter, only if your will was to be forgotten among the useless deviants. Every person of the third world, regardless of difference, bolstered the extent of the KRAD economy.

You were a hero if you joined the cause for peace and impressed the next generation in the fight against oppression. You sought for balance in a world that has fractured its unions as governments cannot stand. Independence was defined by resistance, by revolution, to break the grasp of dominance. The balance was broken as the chaos was unleashed and the punished were executed. Manipulative monsters ran rampant in our world as anarchy spread among the dissidents and led them away. They had claimed to have seen the other side, beyond the walls that have defined our sovereignty. The thirst for madness has been quelled on numerous occasions. Our helpers had exacted revenge on the cruel, the corrupt, and the ignorant bastards that sent thousands off to die for a presumably rightful cause only with leaving the catastrophic results to befall their own dejected kind. Those who believed only in the nebulous KRAD philosophy entered into its domain. We were protected under their company through the jurisdiction of martial law, and the aggression was finally pacified until the undulation of the roughened waves had totally subsided. Our diseases were cured. We quelled the intolerable sentiments of the ruthless dictatorships, not warranting any shift.

Many of our people who felt oppression firsthand have had their spirits defiled and degraded. The actions endorsed by the militaries of the foreign intruders had maintained control over our occupied countries for far too long. I was among the many whose friends and loved ones were blown apart by their drones, forcing me to run and hide. Opposing them was contemplating suicide. As soon as the pain of death had agonized me to a great extent, I joined the KRAD defense forces in their fight against the aggression, to which the enemy swiftly responded to our challenge. The enemy were people who behaved as just and civil individuals, but under their cold exteriors were unjust hatred, coarseness, embitterment, greed, vanity, and corruption typical of the insane and malcontent folk.

Change was defined by a need in aspiration, yet uniformity was defined by a wealth in arrogance. Our nations had obtained their independence and had to sever the hand that plagued our kind for an epoch of tyranny for as long as my family and friends can remember, and end the reign as one. For five years I have borne no change in my heart about the imperialists and their intentions. I rose among the KRAD ranks to satisfy the desires for liberation and no longer live in fear. To them, I was a skilled warrior who believed in myself, not coerced to join the ranks of the heartless bastards who claim to fight for liberty but do not grant it to its own people, advocating much distrust. Marginalization was the understanding that presented us as weak and we needed to be as strong as them.

The KRAD military industrial complex, with the aid of the brightest minds from around the world, has allowed the technology to build up and advance at a frightening pace. Many KRAD bases were constructed and situated worldwide, gathering intelligence and strengthening its arms. The brutal elite trembled beneath our feet, the blood of the poor and middle class that was spilled was finally justified as they turned away from our homeland, divided and discomforted.

Existence was purely an underestimate in the views of the overarching KRAD ideology: change, in body, mind, and spirit. One of their many mantras upheld the idea that revolution is evolution, and they are the catalyst. Those who opposed the order were executed upon their demands, for they were unworthy and had simply vanished under the cover of night and left to die by the agents. The piles of foul cadavers that were carried around and disposed of in our cities were a testament to all who defied us. They were merely unwanted pollutants of our very being that had to be dispelled from our existence.

We were a force to be reckoned with, while the disillusioned fled like disorganized animals. I was one of their best soldiers who were granted with awards for their acts of bravery. I hunted the paroxysmal creatures until I shortened the time for their kind to witness the inevitable brink of extinction. Their united nations garnered out of their impulses had successfully created an unstable world that can never live in peace. We had matured far beyond such excessive practices.

The nations beyond our reach have branded the actions of the growing KRAD superpower with a deceitful epithet: The Evil Empire. They had defamed our loyal friends "terrorists," a word that I hate to imagine as several competing corporate agencies and defensive firms supported the ideology and leading figures, who had failed to follow the KRAD rules, were silenced by the KRAD agents who had no regard for their lives. They masked themselves underneath a cloak and dagger. They wanted them dead because they justified vengeance against their lost brothers, broken pieces. Even if our loyal followers died, they achieved divinity for showing no mercy toward the weak. For every time that a volatile reaction of any kind appeared, we knew that it would render self-destruction.

Coming from our enemy's own country were of their own kind, untrustworthy of their corrupt government, fighting for our side, showing that the deceitful imperialists could be trusted, but it only came from the extremists whose state was holding their freedoms against them.

Our weapons vanquished the spirits of the embittered, expecting a lengthy campaign. Their ideology was bleeding profusely as our forces surrounded the wounds as a collective swarm of mosquitoes. The sky concealed our presence as a stormy night purged their devastated domains. The day was won.

The survivors had joined our side and fought well against the rest of them. I was impressed at their capacity to fight with courage and honor and slaughter the animals underneath the feeble objectifications that undermined their very selves. Sadly, the radical turncoats were also broken pieces that had to be discarded.

Our advanced war machine, combined with the capacity to annihilate without any regards for ethicality, effectively and swiftly outnumbered, outperformed, and outmaneuvered as it instilled fear into millions on the battlefield and overseas. It was now checkmate. Like their military, the disorganized youth scoured among the bleak ruins. The enemy had fallen prey to the many diseases that we poisoned their traitorous blood with. The eruption of suppression and atrocities within and beyond our reaches were just the beginning. Our Evil Empire had the world under its hands. Our presence alone silenced the dying lies.

I retired from the armed forces soon afterward, and still sought for lust at twenty one years old. My job was done. I had paved the way for a new initiative of the next generation. The world was safe from imperialist aggression. I wander among the graves of the fallen cities that have become our domain. The people of the years past, the ones who once existed before us, endangered the KRAD leadership as a group that couldn't be trusted, for they stigmatized the KRAD constituency as an organization of conspiring death merchants, willing to end it all. They did not care about me, or my people, or anyone who lived outside of the influence of the great empire. They advocated the dissent of those who planted seeds of totalitarianism into the minds of the individual world who believed in the cause for a just peace. The KRAD order could never be challenged, as they had no care for the once dominative legacy of the foolish weak. They could oppose our might to only risk being effortlessly crushed by our feet. I could only surmise as to what the KRAD army has done for the public to justify its views.

We were not aware that we all had blood on our hands, that we were ever wrong at all. My thoughts about the Union and all its movements and convictions changed with time as our influence overshadowed the old order, a growing utopian society. For a period of time, I was convinced by the beliefs of my former comrades to inspect the ruins, even if it was against the law for veterans to wander outside the empty borders. The martial law was bitterly conducting its operations on its newly acquired territory through military action. One day, my stimulated curiosity had subsequently urged me to silently escape my dwelling.

I soon came across the entrance to an underground tunnel outside one of our cities, among the squalor of the ruined past. Outside our cities, countless detainment camps contained myriads of the uncivilized disillusioned, fighting for pitiful refuse and groaning, worthless animals, staring at me as I wandered along the pits with anger in their glowing eyes, horridly fervent complexions of despair. I packed little food and water and ventured away from the cities while narrowly avoiding the night patrols of automated hounds that behaved like animals, yet were constituted in the likeness of heartless, soulless machines with artificial intelligence. These things were only one of the countless modems with a purpose to satisfy the demand for a better world. My travels have led me far and wide toward the large black cave that towered over my head. Transfixed to the overwhelming shadow was the noxious miasma of despair. The bleak tunnel reeking of the corpse mines, piles of blackened, burned bodies, filled the decadent air. A dim ethereal veil infused through my skin and swallowed my very soul.

In the cavernous pits, I wince from a light, and was approached by a group of five teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds, who viewed themselves as an organization of freedom fighters. I felt the despair in their eyes, as they had felt the pains as I had, as disposable slaves. I had joined as a member of their group, no longer another object to be discarded. They told me that I had to join their resistance because all others had fallen, their last chance for succession, for the KRAD authority has the capability to track their every move and employ the most advanced weaponry that the world has ever seen. They have the power to destroy life itself. My mission is to bring down the empire, but not afford to kill any innocent people. Our mission is to aid all the oppressed from filling the growing void. We are known as HOPE. We will rip the iron curtain. We will demolish the wall. We will subdue the despair. HOPE will prevail. I have answered the call for change when the voices of others have long been silenced. My conscience is clear. Our plan will be enacted to inhibit the plans of the new government, and we will be remembered for our actions, as true heroes. I forgive my brothers for what I am about to do. I may even have to kill all of them to set things right. I hope that this contingency plan will work, for our last ditch effort will surely face grave opposition by the personified reaper that is the KRAD executioner.

KRAD will fall to their knees. Their world will no longer stand. Our new world will rise again.

My name, as I have always kept in secret, has always been Leber, a rather odd name that I treasure. I will never allow them to take anyone or anything from us. I am willing to risk my life to serve my new allies against the unknown enemy. Bonds will be forged and destroyed with time. Chances will be taken that I hope will shift the odds in our favor. My unequivocal strength and will as a soldier are about to be pushed beyond its limits.

It is the time. Now, I make my final stand.


	2. Chapter 1: How I Think and How I Am

The night has fallen upon us. Our hopes were predicated on the few sources of light that we had, so insignificant, so vulnerable, so meek, that leaving out on the open would leave them to be suffocated by the wind's disheartening whisper. We stood close to them as they glowed and revealed some source of the cave. Though the devices were primitive, we relied on them like the ancients had done when they were hidden in the caves, with little food and water to satisfy our content. The fortunes of victory come at a cost, a long ways away, so aloft and obscured. Our futures were hanging like the inkling beauty of the stars above us, so numerous and vast.

My comrades had found themselves in the deepest part of the cave, lying in wait around a fire. The warmth of the fire kindled the pressures of my past weighing on my cold, burdened body, a sad shell that was consumed by hopelessness and despair, so enticing as if it were love.

I had once had something to strive for above the gains of the nationalistic pride of our people. That wish had disappeared long ago, and that earnest feeling had come back to life.

What drew my sense of honor was from that of the members of the liberators, who had been watching me and have heard about my viced intentions. They originally saw me as a threat to united nations' interests. To the rest of the world, I had been made a minor subservient by the relentless propaganda machine.

Some of my comrades had been technologically manipulated overseas to leave their decadent western ways and join the enlightened movement.

I could still be reasoned with, even with the hollowness that composes my grim, cryptic mind with the emptiness bored by radicalism. Deep within it were the memories of shock and horror at my capabilities as a warrior. To my dismay, I was surprised and overzealous about how I could incite fear not by my expression.

I was like a shadow, a spirit, looming amongst the many, preying on the insignificance that resonates within them, displaying their foolishness to even challenge me and my skills. Before, I feel that I am like an animal, relying on instinct to stay alive, not by abstract reasoning at all. Now, I am a convict, a maverick, a criminal, on the scent of the pursuers, hunting my kind. They have gashed and battered the cadavers of the hopeless, bleak cries hushed by the veil.

Dwelling on the questions of my being, pondering on the reasons for why I exist, I find that there are no right answers. They are but dust blowing in the wind, lost by the discourse. With tenacity I thrive with burdens to bear, and I pray that they will all someday be lifted up. My constant anxiety for the loss of my loved ones will have to go away. I now have a family, a rather effusive one at that. However, few of its members were raucous and insinuating in their odd behaviors.

My shelter is my home that I defend for my life. Nature has forged it, and nature will allow it to stand starkly proudly and boldly, against the towering foundations of the enigmatic collective. The beauty of the past has come to take us under its wonder and awe of vagrant beauty.

For how I am alive today, I play mental transmissions in my head, imagining what would happen if I managed to not come across the strange place, a haven and an asylum. Most of us see it like a maze, and some of us see it as a prison. I imagine it as a restraining order. The void is enveloping around us like a cold mist that cannot be cleared from our deluded perceptions. We are cogently trapped.

It surpasses even higher than the mountains and sinks deeper beneath the abysmal waters.

My earnestness cannot break these bonds that forcefully hold my gains against my losses.

The views of the strangers show some form of restraint in their falsely bold countenances.

Some of them were younger than me, some were older than me, but they respected me.

I was like the big brother, but I still had some authority as an adult that had some grievances.

Whenever I had some people that I could trust, I adhered to their word like it was a bondage.

The many who existed before us strived for unity and protection from outside influences that hampered their interests as a flock, a mindless herd, running in disarray. We were together.

Looking further into the cave, there were enormous shadows brooding and rising in the void, scaring us to an extent, but we knew that we were playing tricks on one another. By launching rocks against the crenelated walls, echoes reverberated across the space, lightening the tones.

Through our voices, we also gave our shadows life, meaning, and purpose along with the atmosphere.

The joy and fullness of life had now dissipated from its ethereal composure, no need to go on.

We were struck with awe and curiosity as the paths widened around the chasm, but we did not want to get lost in the bowels of the deep cave, so we stayed in the particular safe spot.

Some of us looked into the fire, and some of us looked away from the fire. Soon, the fire had died out, signaling that we had to rest. I was rather tired from my exploration of the unknown.

I could feel that my muscles were wearing. I could see that my eyes were feeling rather blurry.

My mind had to shut down, for it had learned too much, for it had become self-aware. It has life, it has meaning, and it has purpose. It made me who I am as an individual, I as me.

My conscience is clear. I know who I am. Me and my brethren share one goal, one mission.

As I rest, I reminisce of my past and future. I see myself running away, now running forward.

The ones who have come before me have faced problems in coping with their weakness.

Now, the ones who will come after me will have already dealt with the cause of the problems.

What has become a plague has been cured from its source and all the many infected hosts.

The vaccine, the cure, the end-all has yet to be ascertained with the overshadowing lies.

These supernatural occurrences are but figments, mere afterthoughts of our personalities.

A conflict between our disillusive reasoning and the fabricative unknown is now at play.

We are playing a game, and it is not checkmate, but somehow, we know we must be careful.

We are playing with our fates in this game, which may take our entire lives to find if we lose.

We are playing with advantages and disadvantages, and we need to assess our capabilities.

I have yet to execute this contingency plan effectively, because we know the consequences.

Based on what I have discovered about how the plan for freedom has formulated was discussed through the bold and charismatic leader of the group, the rebels who rose up against the KRAD tyranny but was forced to flee from the advance of the war machine.

These rebels were actually organized through means of covert operations to investigate the KRAD conspiracy and its suspicious activity that challenged the norms of a non-state actor. The rebels were garnered as a last ditch effort of the fractured united nations to cut the profits.

The KRAD economy, through what I learned, earned its capital through stimulating, profiting, and exploiting the research and development through means of its military arsenal, which were endorsed by the platformist political motivations to expand the influence of the empire as it spanned the world. All those conflicts between the united nations and the KRAD government were but means of taking advantage of every side and forcing them to kill each other. It was a war over a loss of trust that was carried out in total secrecy. Selling weapons of mass destruction, the KRAD motivations for world domination were already schemed, and an insurrection within the boundaries of the company presence was necessary to bring down the KRAD superpower, so that peace may finally be restored.

Thankfully, we cannot have direct contact with the united nations that oversees our questionable actions. We are supported by a UN-backed independent covert peacekeeping agency supported by the special counterterrorism division that is only known as DREAM. We based my entourage, HOPE, to go with its name, for we both work hand in hand, yet our goals are supplanted by DREAM. We do not know of how it came about. Their agents had recruited us to fulfill their mission. Many of the cohorts that make up the task force were primarily mercenaries for hire and war-hardened commandoes who served as excellent training partners. DREAM was a portion of our stipulation as part of our agreement that had to prepare us for any encounters with the KRAD anarchy in all of its manifestations. Each of the members, some of whom were the most elite members of specialized military branches, were tasked with undermining the power of the consortium.

The Evil Empire cannot be reasoned with in the trusted eyes of just and civilized individuals.

The ones that stand will somehow fall, but we have to find out how, with no help to guide us.

The method to deal with this most grave situation must be approached with systematically.

All the burdens in the world amounts on my final stand. HOPE will prevail. It just has to.

I remember the time when I still had a sense of sympathy, and now, it has been lost as immediately for when my friends were lost to the drones. Those frightening shapes and the howls of the sweeping wings that never buzzed instilled fear into my people as the insects relentlessly strafed us with a series of assaults in swarms. People only had seconds to react as they scrambled for the houses and taverns, hearing the screeches of the animals soaring overhead, or else they would be filled with bullets. The weapons had no care for our friends and loved ones as dozens of civilians were silently falling along the roads. Some of them were equipped with gas weapons that ravaged our villages. Revolting bodies of men, women, and children were screaming with such horror that the horrified doctors could not treat them, and the wailing innocents were tossed in piles. There were so many casualties that they had to be burned and their remains were lost in the corpse mines in caves to decay over time. They were the blackened bones of the past that have broken and shattered, left filling the ruined grounds. Those drones that were once hunting us were now being hunted by us. With the help of our allies, we managed to exploit the insignificance of the drones by every make and model and develop a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles that were not directly controlled by organic operators. These drones had their own degree of sentience, their own free will, but had to survive under the confines of their programming with executing impressive aerial maneuvers. A single person could maintain an entire fleet of drones to stealthily fly above enemy airspace as well as perform daring strikes to attack key military holdings in the imperialists' bases. We even had our drones go head-to-head with their drones in daring dogfights and bombing runs above our cities and the areas occupied by the imperialists. Much of our drones had the advantage over theirs because of the advanced targeting systems and a wide array of weapons to fulfill their roles, since they were developed from previously existing industrial materials and technology acquired by unknown means. The drones of the future were major propaganda assets for our growing independent nation, and proved to be a starting point for utilizing the same technology to create other machines of different makes and models to perform certain tasks that we could not do alone, yet still proved beneficial to other foreign militaries. This marked the significant growth of our arsenal with the addition of drones, as we nearly matched the strength of the rivaling powers with the mass modernization of the mechanized consumables. The exchange in the commodity that was the drone had also furnished a ecosystem before it, in essence, evolved as an animal over time.

They became more aware of their actions and were still integrated with the exact same programming to fit their design and carry out the tasks, and with new technological modifications, the drone was an expendable tool just like everything else that comprised of our military industrial complex. Yet at the same time, ethicality was removed from the equation, and they remained as silent murderers of the sky that instilled fear into any of their approach, in the form of fighters, bombers, and helicopters, developed only to destroy. They were just like guns that could shoot for themselves, without impulse, without intimidation, without any second-thoughts, as they were devoid of reasoning to begin with. Thus, the objects proved formidable foes on the battlefield and coarse competition in the business world. Of course, our government had to keep the stories of our victories as well as the horrible atrocities a secret. Those who knew of our actions were eliminated against their will. From my first experiences with the monsters, I have long knew of what terror they brought.

Based on what I have inferred, the effectiveness of the liaison has originated within the overarching views of how the organization has exhibited its growth and development in its political, economic, and military field that surely goes beyond the expenditures and consolidations for which the expansion relies on to continue its existence. Much of the work has been confined in secrecy, yet not all of the details are fully revealed. There must be a way for which the constituency has managed to fabricate these false images, feed us the right information that is actually intended to be wrong, alter our perceptions that are merely summarized in the views of one of millions. These grave issues are made known as if they are commonplace, each always happening. Fathoming a sense of individuality is almost hopeless with all the horrible circumstances. Thus, we are all overshadowed by exhortation.

Breaking the barriers that have defined ourselves, we have surmounted the peak formed by the depressing collective viewing, and we someday hope to have flown beyond the stars.

So many of our woes of the world, formulated by our own doubts of what the very world we live in, produce more questions that we can ever ask, and that is the enigma that draws us all to solve the mystery within us, the zenith that we must reach beyond, the depths we must fathom, the powers for which we shall surpass with the temerity and strength within us to overcome it all.

This strange world is sewn by a fringed thread that weaves and spins around our very being.

The mien will be unraveled for us to observe what is within the world underneath.

A corrupted phantom looms over the graveyards of our solemn pasts, a ghastly, frightening representation of our brushes with death and destruction that have made us as individuals. The souls gather, sing and dance in their solemn pleasantries, soaring into the skies, all those very thoughts pushing to ascertain their sense of reality, are those that belong to us as well. We want to escape. We want to be free. We want to have hope in ourselves and chilling, foreboding atmosphere is nothing to fear as we turn away from the wicked. The voices of the pure want to be heard. The views of the absolute want to be perceived. Everything that is existential rests on our premonitions, for our enemy wants nothing more. Whatever is shrouded by the doubts of the future or overwhelmed by the natural fears of the unknown, there will be a light that will shine in the enveloping discontent of our entire being.

The very understanding, the questions we ask, are simply perceived as grains of sands. The very grains are disintegrated by the waters and reformed again in the voluminous numbers. All the things that are individual mysteries in their own right are interconnected in their own way, each extrapolating beyond what is conceived from the perpetual boundaries of normalcy.

We do not wish to break the threads that hold us, or else we will lose our trust in reality.

We do not wish for the pressures to consume us and distort our judgments of what we see.

We do not wish for the mind to remain useless in this endeavor, as we will be lost to our fate.

The fates that pull each of us one by one toward our eventual demise will need to be halted.

From the struggles between the people that I have once viewed as stable, sane, and rational and the other way around have ruined my perception of life as I had viewed them as enemies.

From this, I feel that I've been inclined to believing my rather odd suppositions betwixt with the supernatural and the unknown, now misguiding them for pieces of expendable technology. What lies in these strange ominous machinations for which the KRAD contractors employ is some strange sense of disillusionment when comparing their weapons to monsters of myth.

I am vehemently denying, being resentful and reticent of the reason that forges the products.

The visceral shortcomings of our premonitions lay deep in our own unstable mental psyche. We are seeing things that we have never seen before. Everything we know might as well be a lie. All work and no play has made us dull beings by our irreverently strange fantasies. Our sense of innocence has been ruined by our insistences that have obscured our limitations.

We are agents of betrayal, which has been determined from our allegedly KRAD encounters.

We accept our fate but do not want to deny our fate. It is like a black hole that consumes us.

We come out of our holes as changed individuals, and we want our existence to be remembered.

There will be millions of men and women around the world knowing of our names and actions.

They will be no longer be weeping for their sorrows that are filling our blasphemous minds.

The people in their graves haunt our spirits with harrowing warnings of our fates. We ignore.

From what I have seen from the haunting images, I have deduced that there is a way to expose the true worth of the strange objects juxtaposed in the overshadowing miasma to which there are no boundaries or guides to point the track out of the mind enveloping trap.

This trap as you know of it is more than something that appears in one place. The trawl is everywhere, as we are lonely groups of fish multiplying and soaring among the cool waters, with something waiting to snatch us from our comfort zone and force us away from our lives. There, everything we see is a glowing light as we rest upon the table, unable to speak or even move, and we are gouged apart and sliced into pieces, a memory which we can not imagine.

Our remains are discarded by the others with the intentions of an insatiable satisfactory want. That want will never be accomplished with how they treat our kind lost toward utter extinction.

We end up like the animals that form the united nations, totally unable to collectively respond, relying on an instinctual impulse that blinds our very senses, separated from our confines. This sense of self-security is quite necessary for us to survive in this bleak community, yet we must not go insane and force our inner stability to the ground where it can never reform again.

The memory disappears, where no one can hear, see, or feel again, a strong disconnection. By wandering toward a deprivation and seclusion of one's self, one dies and rots in his grave like useless filth. No one can change that. Only, as it appears, the KRAD forces that loom over the orders of the entire world, watching us with its menacing eye that glosses through the providence. We run. We never stop. We never scream. We never look. We never turn. We stay alive. When we have to, we are forced to fight. We are forced to kill. We fulfill our status quo. Based on what I have thought of the gross terminuses of the lost cave which I inhabit, I have managed to ponder in isolation. I imagine being inside a dreary military installation, a KRAD military installation that deteriorates our strong minds and bodies until we eventually kill ourselves.

The reason for why such solitary confinements, combined with the uniformity of an assembly line and the periphery of a simple grey box, perform our menial tasks and never doing any more, the monotony of our actions dissipating our selves at the expense of the propitious state. We receive benefits, yet they are material, so I question of the necessity of why we succumb to such practices that have been heralded by the outsiders. Something that we can never replicate is the feeling of ourselves through these peculiar machinations and odd modems.

We are like castaways packed tight aboard a slaveship rising and falling on murky waters, and have arrived at our destination, yet we are called by our fellow kin to bring down our masters, to which this rather barbarous plan is rather horrible in its motive.

We have signed our death warrants, but we are not expected to meet the demands. We all simply decline the offerings.

This solemn trek has set all of us on the path to oblivion with no real results. My will is to make our dream a reality. Our approach to victory is finally sought.


	3. Chapter 2: My Friends and I

What if I told you was not the full truth? Even in the so-called perfect world, there are still problems that cannot be solved. I had the very same revelations when my former family and I were debating over whether or not to join the enemy, the very same sentiments that transpired over how I would exist. Our rivals were waging a brutal war against our kind. They were fighting like exterminators that were cleansing our areas of the inferior beings. The united nations had managed to instill fear into our hearts of their rather barbarous tactics, yet they still were in essence quickly becoming the architect of their own demise. Our hearts and minds were wiped out and erased from the views of existence once the vengeance for each nation toward their differences, condemning themselves of warranting their own destruction.

We would see trailing comets streak above the skies and quickly implode upon themselves.

A prolonged barrage of enormous explosions loomed over the gloomy ruins of the past.

Thousands of suns burned in the glow of the world. As night fell over them with projecting a phantasmic veil, particles of black rain plummeted to the ground and poisoned everything.

Millions were slowly dying, throngs of victims running to the shelters, seeking to be reconciled.

Men were retreating into the shadows of their former shelves. Life is no longer a commodity.

It is a cruel meaning of existence that forces the many to cower in fear of their annihilation.

No longer was a thing remotely delicate, as a thing has no shape, only an abstract meaning.

There is no refuge, as the many are forced to preserve their being in the ruined world alone.

Yet the ones who band together to survive have some rate of success, yet it is still very slim.

When delving our minds into the activity that the KRAD Union has partaken in, the general consensus is that it extrapolates its self-destructive desires beyond that of a terrorist group.

It maintains a relentlessly harrowing image with its reflective glass that cannot be shattered, for the ones who even attempt to damage it are dealt with insurmountable pain and trauma. We have no idea how to refute that variant understanding, yet we have something else to prove.

The KRAD idol is symbolized by the way at which it operates beyond satisfying the desires of death being manufactured and distributed in the like of bitterly cold, heartless machinations.

It has this presence to it that proves to be truly nihilistic encompassing its rather auspicious conception.

Whether we believe it or not, the KRAD cloak had long been wrapped around our bodies, and, after being stripped from our wearing bodies, we have discovered that it actually acts good.

Yet the passions of corporate greed seem to be our only leads in how the enemy has gotten so powerful from its aggressive profiteering overseas with the selling of advanced weapons.

Something rather disturbing haunts the wastelands of territories that the superpower has managed to control with its brutal tactics with complete disregard for ethicality, yet converted them into massive technological monoliths of countless industries all merged into one entity.

The figurehead of the collective has agents and military leaders situated all around the world, each controlled by the laws that govern every citizen and civilian and not let them interfere.

Some of the actions that they are linked to are extremely bloody violence and hidden bribery.

Much of the information about these actions is very limited due to much of the achievement of their methods of silencing the people by the government who truly holds the absolute power.

Consummated is an extenuated notion of discordance and exploitation at the peoples' expense.

It seems so contemporary and traditional that such self-destruction is proven to be necessary.

Everything that is done is done, yet it is only insatiable in our enemies' sadistic desires.

So much of our kindness is extinguished when refuting the legends about this mysterious foe.

The first person that I encountered in the confines of the cave was a teenager of occidental origin, coming from formerly, one of the most powerful nations in the world. His name is George, and he knows little of me already. My suppositions of him were already manifested. Judging by his personality, I think he does little to care of me at all. All the common views of the bloodthirsty, chauvinistic, corrupt, arrogant, and self-centered people who see themselves as exceptional, the only exceptional, and the only ones who want to spread their beliefs by means of forcing them down others' throats. Thankfully, the mysticism is not totally present.

He is somewhat nice, as he proves himself to be a just and relatable fellow, yet he is sometimes wanting to be a hero, all the time, no matter the risks, to preserve his legacy. He is like the foil, the complete opposite to me, yet we lived in extremely fanatical times. Both of us were living in a time where our leaders were launching us in the wrong direction. If we were used as soldiers to justify our policies, there is no real purpose with the annihilation of individuality, produced in the same people who survive among the ambience of the greats. Essentially, we are all being possessed, as pawns, yet on the inside, we each are all scared.

George embodies the potency of all of our views of him being raised to the beliefs of a society of, formerly, the greatest country in the world, magnified through his meagre possessions. His sunglasses and ten-gallon hat that he doesn't always wear accentuates his disguised stature, while at the same time his emotions prevent him from freezing into a stony figure. He wears a necklace of bones of animals that come from his deserts that he belonged in. We already live under the idea that he has become already used to it, as he was once a bounty hunter who worked for the enemy and had centered himself toward finding criminals for his superiors that were apprehended, tortured, and eliminated. Life was a game to him, for the reward was beyond the satisfaction of living, more secretive to him at an individual level that he has never told our group. The miscreants were people targeted and dispatched as internal dissenters and common cutthroats. Yet at the same time, he was endangering innocent people, his friends, for crimes they never committed, implicated in helping the disillusioned.

The KRAD authority had obligated their tamed predators to track the scent of the mavericks and eventually catch them in their tracks. They were the ones who killed them. Now, the only guide that George has is himself and us, no longer being dictated by the masters. Those possessions, however, mean so much to him as much as we value our exhibitions.

The minor significance lies in the desires, the inconsistencies that define us, and our mistakes pull us together through delaying the inevitable, one useless object at a time. George's show-off attitude is grasped by his unwavering desire to be pleased by excessively simple things. Food is the one thing that he ends up wanting to stop for, drawn into the consumerist temptation.

The tragic sense that sets him from the rest of us is that he actually tries to contend with concealing it instead of being so boisterous with his demeanor and ruining himself socially. We even have seen him playing about with his knife and thrusting his strength against the insurmountable, alone, seeing him kicking and punching, pretending to be a hero, being unaware of us and only taking us several moments for him to snap out of his little uncorrelated world.

We even have seen him come out of the mouth of the cave, surrounded by the enormous limelight, to shoot at rocks with his variety of united nations-provided guns. We think that he is using ammunition as he attempts to become psychotic and crazy yet bitterly sarcastic as he reads our rather disturbed and sometimes relieved body language. George also sometimes, due to his ignorance, gets himself into situations that greatly burden his social intellect that oftentimes produces rather odd results. One instance has him fuming in rage when he finds that he doesn't have any source of western-produced food on the third-world so-called wasteland to satisfy himself for only a few minutes even when he locates such sources.

In truth, his appetite for destruction can be seen as a handicap, yet it keeps him fixated on something to alleviate the problems of fighting in a war where rations aren't always there. His machismo is shown toward us and the enemy that shows little to no noticeable emotion. At the same time, we are aware that we all have flaws of our own kind, and through our decentralized leadership, we each improve on ourselves as we await to witness our purpose.

Our minds are perforated by these foreign ideas like receiving a shot through the brain, yet it never wears off. It penetrates our very being and injects a soluble agent designed to correct. Our world changes as we are introduced and engrossed in a myriad of different viewpoints.

One of these rather strange ones comes from another person of the middle class from another occidental area, reduced to living a poor person in a village that belonged to his ancestors. He is a teenager named Mark, an athlete with the personality to prove his strength in his mental and physical sense. Mark aspires to be a hero as well. He has also become a studier of weapons across different fields, and has developed a passion for such instruments, regardless of their ethicality, that he acts a little crazy. The way that he names his weapons after his friends that he lost in battle as trophies to remember them by, to which I find rather odd. My people once had the same issues become we were enlightened, questioning ourselves and never being stuck in the past. For Mark's case, that has never been fully addressed through his possessions. His stuttering stammer startles him greatly and has left him somewhat timid toward his comrades. His brash personality is very headstrong, and his obsession clouds his judgment and thus force him in another direction. He also claims to have seen dead people and ghosts, but only when he is alone. Even the rest of us do not believe in such superstitions. The only things we keep watch for are lights glowing in the sky from the mouth of the cave, for foreign hostile aircraft that conduct search and destroy operations. He views everything abnormal as related to the enemy.

The man has long known of sabotage. When dusk had fallen, he swore an invariable vengeance to his steadfast KRAD employers.

He had written several dissertations about a major potential collusion linked back to the organization.

For a long time, he was a master of propaganda and persuasion, fabricating rumors himself.

He has been an advocate of large-scale government cover ups in his age of reasoning. At the same time, his malevolent mind is gradually being degenerated into nothingness by his own vexed accusations. However, we do not know how and why he joined us in the first place.

He was a social outcast who was sheltered from his poor family, as the boy yearned for hope.

From what I have heard from Mark, he was a scholarly journalist on current issues and was personally appointed by the enemy to promote the growth of the new world order through propaganda. Some of his friends were at the institution, yet they all had mysteriously passed.

The implementation of new ideas of enlightenment excited the boy, yet he was insecure. He tried to warn of the agents, yet it was already too late. He had spent much of his life living a lie under the anomalous system and was disgusted by the dissonant shape of the incongruent imagery constantly being repeated in the same sated mannerisms of a stunted conformity. By impassively living in the same room for so long, a prison with a pen, paper, and a desk, the monotonous depictions had almost reflected his inner feelings. He decided to secretly leave the propaganda building under the cover of night, and his family was taken away from the agents. They were never seen again. He had seldom spoke of it, as his entire body nearly lost control. The last thing that he saw was a light in the sky, one of possibly extraterrestrial origin. The thing in the clouds was probably a helicopter or airplane, yet it was not a weather balloon.

Mark roamed the streets and ran blindly into the night without a guide or sense of direction. Underneath the twilight, he was meandering through the crowds and was saved by one of his good friends who escaped the facility unharmed, confined under the conditions of solitude.

From then on, the friend had brought with him an agent of the united nations to take him under their wing, and Mark was no longer a fledgeling to be sheltered by the bitter storms. The traumatic torture that he received at the concentration camp was purely psychological, as no hostility or violence was exchanged, yet it was executed through an expression of thought and articulation of language, combined with the idea that one was always being watched.

Even in his drawings, he struggles to encapsulate the meaning of individuality and freedom, for it was degenerating enough for his moral mind to repeat the same task over and over. He and his brothers Luke, Mark, and John are all journalists who have spoken the truth of the KRAD lies.

Mark is somewhat bigoted, but does not have that much of a strong voice of a leader. He is a leader who is hidden, obscured by the perpetual blackness of his own mental discontent. The man is somewhat of a pervert as a distorted degenerate with a greatly disturbed persona. He seems rather cold when observing the women that are around his age with envious eyes. Mark cannot contain himself when he is entranced by the opposite sex. It is almost as if he has a personal retribution with his conflicted self that is resolved through his encounters.

He is possessed, driven by his lust, only trying to protect his new family and his sisters. His sense of honor is corrupted by his societal norms in the belief that he acts for everything that threatens his well-being and the well-being of his potential mates. He is dying for attention.

Everything to him has to come with a price and a reward, which is accentuated by objects.

These objects are no longer people, only elucidated things that presuppose pleasurous pleas.

Mark is a being who is trapped within his very desires that may possibly never come true.

Yet he still has a good side through his reasoning, coupled by his will to challenge himself to always try new things, yet he turns it out and thus forces his conscience down a deep chasm.

To an extent, his bad side is accompanied by his will to be consumed by bitter revenge. He is forced down into a chasm and only has the courage to finally snap out of it. He enjoys his excessive pride and joy over menial things that have to do with his sensuous pleasantries.

As a warrior, his lust makes him distracted, yet he fights with the hand of a dead man, one that strikes fear into our enemies when squinting and revealing a intimidating snarl of anger.

He is also somewhat of a tactician who analyzes the area and determines the time to act. Mark has even said himself to have a mysterious sixth sense present within his viewings of the grave beyond, reinforced by his involvement in conspiracy theories and the paranormal.

He has the power to imagine the presence of superstitious vibes detected in the KRAD vicinity.

In spite of his idiosyncrasies, Mark is an avid asset that allows us to explore the unknown.

However, a callous consequence lies in the depression of his inner self that greatly ruins him.

He taps into the past and present and imagines the future in order to set us on the right path.

At the same time, I still feel strange around the three females of our group, as they can be somewhat of a bother to deal with their rather odd problems. Thankfully, at least one of them is married and does not have the urge to get in my way of pleasure. The first woman that was formed of the group was an espionage agent and effective explosive expert fully trained at sixteen, hailing from one of the neighboring eastern nations that experienced corruption at its finest, and quickly lost all control in a brutal civil war. Her name was Aria. At a young age, she was caught in the crossfire of the divided homeland, trying to fend for her younger sisters who were being stalked by the forces of a brutal dictator as they roamed the roads. Even as her parents were eventually evacuated to safety with the aid of the peacekeeping forces that were intervening in the area to halt the conflict with negotiations, but the destruction raged throughout her entire country. Much of the world was entering into a panic when democratic interests were threatened.

When there was no hope for her to run in fear, Aria was forged into a soldier by the honor of the loyalist military and trained to bring down the separatists that weren't doing it purely for the promise of prominence. The impingement by the separatists was a swift and brutal execution that caught her homeland unaware. They raided the capital and wrecked the foundations of civility. Since then, the crumbled country had been forced into a splintered status. A depressing KRAD umbra encompassed over the embittered environs.

She had been one of the thousands of poor souls to roam the battlefield of the bloodiest engagement of the civil war, one that would decisively change the entire course of the war. On the brink of death against one of the foe's tanks, she was saved by one of the rebel turncoats who secretly was working for the united nations forces that were trying to restore the status quo. His name was Aryeh, a childhood friend who then disclosed information to her. This mysterious warrior only left the woman confused as she tried to get his attention and reveal his identity behind a mask and a shrapnel-blackened trenchcoat with a black helmet.

She continued to shatter the fragmented leadership of the enemy, still searching for a mate.

By the time that the dictator was arrested and executed for his crimes, Aria had returned to her unstable country that was still undergoing chaos in the streets and suffering from famine.

In trying to cope with the pains of existence in a country with a social uprising that forced much of the nation into complete collapse, forcing the valiant and gallant to rise above the weak and bring down the useless and the corrupt, the girl was at more than a mere standstill. Yet this could be applied to both sides in the struggle for the dominance of the new republic.

Even as a member of the contingency forces, she still tries to win herself over to the men.

She had also been convinced that the rebellion was merely an inside job conducted by the KRAD conspirators right under their perceptions of brutal conflict beyond the tools that construct and undermine the hopes of supporting containment over a total disregard for unjustified ethicality.

Regardless, we have reasons to believe that the warmongers had obtruded their sway through an intruded leverage of the rebellions in her country as well as many others worldwide. Extortion was a medium that allowed the proliferation of deadly instruments to aid the rebellion, and even when the channel of distrust had run dry, somehow, it flowed again.

We were always aware by those jade green eyes of suspicion with decorated cyan eyelashes underneath the shade of the flowing brown hair that she was hunting for every possible moment. Despite her experiences in the KRAD channel, she is unable to fathom its the same time, she always wanted to be funny and wanted to impress, but that, to an extent, distracted her from the task at hand in regards to her careless mistakes when dealing with high grade explosive materials. She always loves handling with dangerous things to the point that it is her deemed interest and passion as much as the rest of us.

Her innocent complexion was contorted from the influx of the western way of life.

Aria has this certain charm to her in spite of her barking and grumbling typical of a woman who has a liking for fashion, something that I struggle to deal with in the other females. Yet Aria proves to be an asset by her courage and talent with insurmountable odds with such a disregard for others at time in order to accomplish the task at hand.

Another one of the more peculiar types is much more of a snooty princess in terms of her wealth in arrogance. She has this kind heart, but it is obscured by her shadowy lifestyle of a pacified pampering. She presents a passive-aggressive personality toward any who agree or disagree with her views on any issue. However, this rather boisterous provocative reveals much of her affluence with an odd vigor under her provenance.

She is likely the emanated embodiment of the immorality of opulence. She was a descendant of a royal family from centuries past with similar conditions even now. Much of her former life was overshadowed by the extortion, sabotage, and violence that faced many people who didn't choose to follow the rules.

This girl's name was Spectra, a seventeen year old from another occidental nation, an aristocratic daughter who inherited the fortunes of a weapons contractor known as Evertann Limited, one of the most prosperous companies that developed and tested a wide array of technology. Many of its worldwide interests have benefited of civilians, scientists, and soldiers alike. The girl's life was run by her overindulgence on things that had no purpose and were just as expendable even after her fall from grace and supposed deception by the enemy. Her serviceable generosity was distributed to others who only adhered to her financial choices.

The family was only a scientist and a CEO, no brothers and sisters, who used engineering to survive. This company was sabotaged underneath a KRAD financial scandal and had most of its revolutionary top-of-the-line equipment torn away from its foundations. Even her family and care-taking butler Geist were captured by the enemy. She had never seen them ever again. Her discipline and faculty were challenged to run the remains of the fractured company.

Many of the plans used to construct inventions with the intention of satisfying commercial interests now was utilized in munitions factories everywhere at the urgency of the corrupted state. Countless people are driven by this self-destructive impetus. Its massive profits are generated by death itself in all of its many corporate facets. As a result of this, she has been burdened by such grief even though she masquerades with such a haughty disposition in order to make herself feel better with the dire situation of her family. This accession was most unprecedented. The provisions of a rectified consolidation were securely watched by members of the state with little alarm.

She was pressed to escape as she soon as she read the government-offered contract signed by her parents who had left to take part in their work in black projects being tested in undisclosed locations. Upon failing to meet the demand to forcibly develop military projects herself, her mansion was raided by enemy personnel employed by one of the countless subsidiaries, arms of the ruthless conglomerate, an elite counter-intelligence agency known as Fata Morgana. This agency also had securely and secretly served as the thirteenth largest multinational corporation that our enemy had exchanged the most grave benefits with.

As soon as the agents tried to exchange pleasantries with the woman and her overly-defensive adviser, she knew something was wrong about the impingement.

Spectra and her loyal butler were forced to flee the scene and her ruined dwelling by means of a modified transport vehicle. There, the two faced off against a horde of private agents that were chasing after them with presenting no warning but force. They could not run from them. No one was there to help them.

They were seeking to kill her. She was the needy that had to be trampled on by the only competition typical of the victimized terrors.

She was supplying secret information of the enemy military developments in operative areas by means of subterfuge toward the people she never trusted.

Many of the actions spurred by the views of the deserters of the KRAD opposition forces relied on her skills to carry them out without being repressed by the state.

She was a mercenary who valued her life as much as every kill she made, linked back to the momentous exploits of the insurrectionists and the failed rebellions.

Life was ever fleeting as the storm of hailing bullets and streaking missiles soared over her head with every time that she materialized with suspicious intent.

Her vehicle was eventually destroyed and the agents surveyed over the fatal wreckage. The girl and her loyal butler helplessly gripped to the ground as the men solemnly passed over them. The two hastily passed through a graveyard in the hopes of not being tracked down by them. They were dead wrong. Immediately, the two were launched into disarray when they were blinded by the fog in the forest, wandering through the labyrinth, yet they stayed together.

Suddenly, the two crossed paths with the vengeful leader of its security division, the one who forced all his expendable grunts after them, without any support from his comrades. The leader forced the girl into a challenge that she had to accept with flashing her snooty demeanor. She was quickly beaten in the melee. Laying at the bottom of a hole and being carried away to an undisclosed location while being unconscious reminded her of death.

When she woke up, she was restrained and being experimented on inside a KRAD laboratory. She was being observed by the pitiless leader through a camera.

During this process, she was erased of nearly all her memories at the expense of being completely transformed. This girl discovered that she remained the same in her appearance, yet she had the ability to become transparent and invisible at will, as well as the skills of levitation and the ability to phase through objects. She thought she was dead.

At the same time, she was awed by her new talent that aroused much potential for the enemy. She was injected with a gene that earned her those capabilities.

Being genetically tampered with through testing yielded much excellence toward her potential customers. Eugenics were the least of their concerns.

Spectra was soon discovered by her butler who had gained the same abilities and they both devastated the laboratory from the inside. The soldiers were scared to death. After escaping, they were rescued by members of the united nations that ensconced them to learn about using their strange new abilities. The organization was never exposed for its severely cruel scientific experiments. Even after the hidden laboratory was nearly in ruins, its members still survived. The girl had never seen any of her kind, and ponders that there are more individuals whose powers are being exploited and now being employed to terminate her.

She remains somewhat friendly and outgoing with high spirits, but ever since the incident, she is very worried of her future, almost possessed.

She knows nothing.

As a result of this, she has been burdened by such grief even though she masquerades with such a haughty disposition in order to make herself feel better with the dire situation. Thankfully, some of her personal belongings that remained had not been absconded, her personal treasures in the form of her conceited beauty through her excessive adorning. I chance upon the idea that her immortal body leaves her stark naked. Her mischievous tricks are somewhat disturbing for her to be remotely satisfied. She enjoys her revelry as if it is a means of her to escape from the confines of a broken reality unable to be fixed.

The pretty one always finds a way to pleasure herself. She often seems so eager to get us to do her bidding, and is labeled as a "phantress" for this reason.

I am frightened by her feelings of liberation. She is well known within secretive echelons of the KRAD scientific field that are likely developing countermeasures as we speak.

Her responses are galvanized purely out of her personal wishes. With the recent snatching of her butler, she feels pestered to serve herself.

When trying to reason with such a wench, this one is very manipulative and just as conniving.

Spectra acts like a moody child, as this is typical of what the imperialists are, only spoiled brats.

Sometimes, to which some of us can agree, she is a total bitch, having modeled as a vengeful hellion. Her motivations are formulated through her powers.

At times, she even goes as far as to throw her caution to the wind and imagines herself as a harrowing and haunting ghost to the point that she adopts this rather phantasmic persona. She relies on stealth and secrecy as much as any girl is with her relationship with other men. Much of her past was just as hidden.

Her internal struggle is her insecure vagabondism. She seeks to exhume her disinterred glory from her solemn grave.

To show that she is somewhat connected to reality, somewhat alone, she loves to smile and laugh, rather haughtily along with covering her elated face by means of an expensive hand fan. She also has this personal preference for things with more purpose than mere disposability. One thing that rather amuses me is how she loves to take her anger out by slapping people. Her invigorating mirth guides her fate as a good-nurtured person who trusts us.

Yet at the same time, Spectra is valuable by her promiscuity, furtiveness, and clandestinity.

However, the one that is married isn't so much of a way to speak of her tempting exploits, so I need to explain of her at a later time when the manner is appropriate. Yet this is the time when there is a need to be important, as she has been singled out in our assessments, mainly because she is just a skeptic who is rather shy over the exacerbation of the KRAD conflicts. She was a child prodigy in her intelligence and the study and management of science and technology and mathematics typical of a specific oriental nation that values its mental gifts. She longs for her lover that was caught in the trouble that she caused herself. She was the daughter of intellectual parents who worked for the country's aerospace and defense industry. The pressurizing work that the family undertook was centered on an innovative government initiative of increasing a competitive stance between the greatest country in the world through scientific developments. She eventually managed to desert from her family and was seeking to escape to the greatest country in the world in order to live a better life. She never did.

The girl's name is Wenqian, formerly employed as a hacker against the stringent government that symbolized a new epoch of cyber-warfare. She was seen as a deceiving crook. Her defiant stance on censorship had given her national attention that proved to be especially significant among the majority.

An independent of leading a group of officials targeted by her country's government in illegal operations had forced her away from her homeland. The actions of manipulating the computer hardware of state-owned businesses and infrastructure were traced back to her through the government secret police. On the run from state law enforcement, she encountered the agents of the KRAD government that were trying to get people to support their cause, and she was quickly exploited as a member of their elite hacking groups. At the costly expense of her parents forever under government custody, she gravely admitted to help.

Much of the electronic countermeasures enabled them to retrieve data from classified military files from the united nations' defenses in order for them to develop a wide array of new weapons of war to conceive or counter certain strategies that furthered their own benefit. The girl herself along with other agents was sent in to accomplish these tasks purposefully. During this time, she had also learned to be a pilot of military aircraft. Widespread scandals involving unstable nations dealing with dangerous materials distracted the united nations long enough for the KRAD collective to maintain its firmly rough leverage.

At the same time, the enemy was conspiring to leak into major defense departments and corporations along with using extortion to obtain the money and resources they needed with little effort from the economies of the major powers. They even managed to influence many global crises with warranting the proliferation of these newly developed armies of disorder to grant the funding of their operations in many worldwide conflicts across different regions.

All of this was achieved through the views of a pragmatic Wenqian who predicted these events beforehand, having amassed much knowledge of certain currently worldwide issues. Eventually, she was found to be a pawn in this conspiracy when she was being undermined by her superiors when their clandestine efforts overseas managed to explode into anarchy.

The same stance on censorship proved insignificant for her to freely speak at all about it, and even then, forcing the masses away from the truth demanded the cruel higher ups to manage more brutally toward their subordinates in the cause for a revolution that ended up failing.

All the wars of the world ended up slowly destabilizing the balance of power of major players.

The disease of self-annihilation could not be contained or quarantined. The unstable world descended into a state of madness and was killed and reincarnated under the KRAD image. She had denounced censorship under her new way of life as much as her homeland.

Eventually, she was targeted to be eliminated by the enemy agents that tried to halt her escape from their domain, even relentlessly sabotaging her means of doing it electronically.

As the new promised land had degraded into a state of ruination, so had the minds of the individual in response to total conformity in the same vain of a dictatorship. The same thing happened. The girl was located and was found to be mentally debilitated from her encounter with elite members of the united nations police forces as much as the KRAD security forces.

Eventually, she was raised as a hacker against the new world order. She had also utilized her talents to become a genius inventor of the united nations scientific community. She has become a much larger target than what she already was, an individual shrouded in the mystery of collectivism and why it is hard to live.

I regard the efforts of Wenqian as a worthy ally with her skeptic persona and a symbol for the goals of freedom through her commitment to the new impressive modem of technology.

This is my story of how I came together with these strange men and women each with their own view of hope. I have mine, and they have theirs. Individualism is the catalyst that must forever be expounded.


	4. Chapter 3: The Enemy Upon Us

Many of us had not known of our sudden approach with agents of the united nations security forces that were clandestinely dispatched in the area. They probably had realized that they were being hunted too. Those very agents who were intending to free us from the claustrophobic position had forced us into confines, shackles, that we each were forced to bear. This treacherous agency was a part of the military branch, being backed by the united nations, yet it acted independent from its founders. Initially, we did not heed their warnings, and we were forced into a hell through people who we had to trust in such a position. We as HOPE were about to be called into action to serve the interests of the enigmatic DREAM that has been knowing of our divagations for most of our service. Being separated from the new world order as an act of insubordination, I as an unwelcome newcomer may be seen as a terrorist threat for relating with them.

The sudden intrusion of the corruption had merged with the forlorn viewings of such an abject area to address our feeling of despair where we were trying to deal with the situation. We had long vividly remembered of the day when the anarchist world was chasing after us. Many of us were outcasts, drawn into the depressing shadow by our own doing or being instigated by others, but ultimately, we were constricted inside the KRAD prison by them. We had tried to warn the people of their fate and the error of their ways. They didn't listen. I was embittered at their cold, expressionless faces that dejected my kind, before they ended up endangering and destroying themselves at the expense of the monstrous enemy to consume.

We were not going insane at the very moment of our betrayal by society. We were criminals, crooks, convicts, escaping from our pursuers, ignoring the alarms, unable to escape the numbers of the officers. We had little standard weaponry to even defend ourselves in a simple firefight.

Each of us epitomized our enemy as scum who showed no empathy toward us as scum.

The incursion by the agents of the allied organization that thankfully had come to our aid was presented with a feeling of hope when we had nearly degenerated into a horde of malevolent beasts that could not reason with anyone out of the regard for our discontent for ourselves.

Our loitering had ceased, our indolence had uplifted, and our weariness was reinvigorated.

We were not being punished for our felons, scrawled transgressions, as we had not committed any crimes at all.

Our sense of judgment was reinforced by personal revenge as much as any defiant proponent who has had oneself ruined and lost as payback. The payment had since long been overdue.

Our lives were ruined and lost, yet we seemed normal about our invigorating discussions. We had talked of our encounter with the monster and were worried of being found by the hunter.

As warriors of our own cause, dormant among the seething rage, we simply remained calm.

What radiated in our cool bodies was the heat of a dying star that was ready to explode.

Immediately, we had sucked everything inside it as a enormous hole, atom for atom.

These specialists were resplendent in their outfits of a depressing black and white hue.

We were entombed inside the cave for so long that the fear of the outside world was starving our sense of individuality, degrading our perceptions right down to a simple primordial instinct. Even if our interests were arbitrary, we were surviving like a pack of disorganized animals. The vantage point was the cave, and the tunnels were our means of reaching the location. The situation of the countless nations undergoing corruption were the very issue that managed to serve their own individualistic political ambitions, and we acted like their leaders.

We had eluded capture from the enemy organization as our interests were at stake. Our ascension to greatness in each of our members were, ironically, not for achieving hope at all. However, our overriding contingency plan was insisted upon the destruction of our opponents. We could only trust ourselves, as we were then close friends. Our capabilities in the trials were about to be put to the test of the fullest of our limits, to surpass them, in the real time.

Many of us in our normal lives were trying to deal with the bothersome circumstances of living the life of the past, without technology or anything to please ourselves electronically. We were severed from the spider's web, falling from the deadly grasp of our captors, yet we were not truly free when we have landed on our feet. We still had the rest of the enormous world to deal with, against the pestilences of modern man and its devious contraptions that allow them to imagine themselves as gods, creators and destroyers, beyond our wildest misconceptions. We have been living in the shadow of a doubt for so long that we struggle to face our excursion and entry into the outside world, so barren and sterile typical of any promised land upon the cultivation of its inception. However, as the garden grows, it is beaten time and time again by the forces of nature, and even on the brink of destruction, a new harvest is bound to blossom in an eternal joy to feed its masses. That idea was gone from the very start when the management started to proclaim that we shall live under the most transparent administration in history. The very being was forged in shattered glass, and now nothing can be recovered. We have received many cuts and bruises, yet the agony runs deep in our fragile consciences.

The remains of the pains have been constructed in enormous buildings and monuments, each with a reflective significance that has affected all of us in our struggle for freedom. We fail to see ourselves for who we are, and we invent concepts based on our own arbitrary views. As we try to recover what is lost, the effort yields little result, the ends do not justify the means, and the objectifications that we try to conspire are deciphered with grave perplexity.

In closing this rather long monologue, my ambitions are still sadly unknown, even to myself.

If the world is like a puzzle, the wonder and the gravity of its splendor is spread out evenly, and somehow, all the pieces will evenly fit together to form one of countless amazing things. Thus, the reason for I am being tested as a soldier lies in my bravery, not brains or brawn. For my own conception as to why I am doing what I am doing, trying to agree with agents of my former imperialist enemies, I was greatly disturbed at the growth of the KRAD Empire.

The very existential nature of the enemy is surrounded by a decadent anachronistic barrier that cannot be perforated even by geniuses, long guarded by secrecy as if they were some reawakened new world order, as if they had been some cult that had predicted the end of the world and when and how the events will play out. They might as well be playing cards with each other. They are prolonging and diminishing the destructive premonitions with every move made.

Some of those moves were beneficial or detrimental, yet there were no real consequences.

Fissures of dissent rumbled and tore open an enormous cleavage that divided many groups.

The charges are being made, the rewards are being given out, and no one throws the table.

It has likely been that way for perhaps many years, confined by tradition, law, and directive.

Governing the rest of the ruined world is by no means a simple game or trade off. Some world leaders were sympathizing for us in the fight for freedom before the great war broke out, before the new world order tarnished it with their corrosive, faithless lies of propaganda. We are all like pawns for the major players. Now, the only two remaining are us joined with what remains from the fractured united nations and the solidified closure of the KRAD collective.

In fact, we do not see this war of armageddon as a game at all. It is a long fight for survival. The cataclysm nearly made us dismiss believing in eternal justice.

We do not wish to fight any longer, for years we have suffered the blows that our young minds could not comprehend even into the horrors of our progenitors, should they be alive today. Now, our hope for survival lies in ourselves. The odds were indeed against us. We still strived for supremacy.

The prelude to our unfortunate greatness now begins.

It was a normal day inside our cave, day thirteen, the light inundating the mouth of the cave as if it were some enormous beast, briefly blinding us mortals as the beginning of its eternal cyclical stint. We were all observed as shadows in our midst, growing ever larger as we moved on our trek down and out of the cave's mouth, minding the rocks and cracks away from our tattered clothes and wearing feet. Formally, we had condemned ourselves from the heavens, slipping into an abysmal sorrow day by day, forcing ourselves into the agony, with the last of our food and water, leaving to hunt like animals on the rocky desert of the outside. What remained of the no-fly zones of the past were clouded in the smoke that filled the skies. All those bitter operations against our people by the imperialists were no better than what the new world order had planned for the chosen people and the disillusioned deviants of the past. All the kidnapping and violence seemed to push the former security forces to be unwilling to serve in such a hellhole. Some of them killed themselves. That was once a rumor to me.

The cold blood and sadistic murder was another story, as the dictators that were desperately trying to grapple the portions of the ruined territory, brutalize the populations, and exploit the horrific devastation, until their tenure of mercilessness had solemnly come to an end. I was one of the people who had overthrown the dictator, together with the millions of my own people, promising an end to the corrupt reign of tyranny. Sadly, the attempts to restore the fragile peace of centuries ago have still not been solved in the barren middle ground. All those massive resources had paved way for the KRAD Union to storm the reformative power of its influence over the ruined towns and formerly holy cities. The coalition forces were merely bleak obstructions in the way of progress, and they were quickly vanquished like insects. It was a terrible scourge that destroyed the foundations of reason and the laws of nature against a brutal, unreasoning force.

Yet our supposed enemy had not authorized the carnage of thousands of innocent lives.

The task was carried out through elitist members of the private military contractors, pawns just like us as hired specialists to enforce the security and secrecy of their clandestine operations.

We never wanted to move into the devastated cities, for we did not to be reminded of pain, or stalked by ferocious predators masked under the helm of the blazing, basting, swirling sun.

The entire desert was a solarium, and we did not dare to venture out into the blistering land. Each of us did not want to die with all the dejected spirits, corpses degrading in the sands of time.

Fortunately, we had to face the conditions when we out went hunting and scavenging. The thought of divine protection was never even conceived to begin with.

The desolate and lonesome area had little value to us, yet we never ventured into the cities.

Most importantly, we did never go alone. At least a pair of us would switch out daily to search for any auspicious arbitrary activity of anything adamantly associated with the KRAD Union. So far, we have faced no machines, monsters, or men in the mouth of our cavernous chasm.

The crucible of a newfound movement would be contained inside the detritus of the old order. Our testament to this grave undertaking proved to be based on social acceptance and possession, for each of us still had to stick together or be abandoned by the rest of us.

We did not want to be assimilated into the new world order. Everything that had a conscience refused or else they were assimilated or annihilated. If you can't beat them, join them, as to me, that line was easy to understand, yet was rather difficult to place under the KRAD state.

There was little to no need to join them, as everyone who joined them were expendable. Many of us have come to a point that it was impossible to replace man for designated tasks, in spite of the qualifications or conditions or even the casualties. They were just like drones.

Yet at the same time, we all had to face our fears. The united nations were our trusted friends.

Inside the cave, I had immediately woken up. My black hair flashed in the glow of the morn. I quickly scratched my hair rather erratically to find that I have collected much dust and lint, for I had not showered in ages. My body was growing decadent faster than what my superiors had denounced about the imperialist westerners of the past, yet this issue did not bother me. What still disturbs me is how they have brutally executed our enemies without a sense of remorse.

I had still not managed to change my garments in several days, and the smell reeks like the residue of a chemical weapon that just exploded from far away, yet thankfully, we are not dead.

I slowly got up, holding my hand against a jagged wall of the cave, minding any rough edges.

I turned to breath a sigh of relief from the short rest of only three hours, for I was stationed on night watch duty at the mouth of the cave, which reminded me of the thrill of the hunt overnight when I searched animals for game with my father and younger siblings. My tattered clothes of a fetid black jumpsuit was getting a little hot for me, and I quickly stripped it off. Fortunately, I had a muscle shirt underneath me to reveal my muscular build. It has shown some training, yet not that much compared to the physically pulsating powerhouse of George.

I did not intend to impress the virgins, yet I secretly had some platonic obsession for the three.

The jumpsuit was tossed over my equipment and various weapons as much as George. I actually admired the collection of the guns and grenades that he salvaged from the victims.

Under my head, I bore a chained pendant, an inscribed talisman of silver that my mother gave to me before she died. I will always remember her when I possess this trinket. This special gift was hidden from my fellow subverted employees in a secret location before I defected to join the united nations.

The electronic helmet that I still wore was used to protect the expendable grunts of the new world order, clad in its black and red marking, specially modified, not customized by Wenqian to best suit me. George respects the oriental girl for her skills and is always willing to engage in a friendly competition with her.

I still held on to the assault rifle, designated marksman rifle and laser sight pistol, full ammo.

However, I was somewhat bored by Mark's discussion of the topic of the specifications, for he had also been an independent weapons specialist and researcher, learning and assessing the effectiveness of each and every tool we gathered and put to use in forging our future. However, my conspiratorial friend happens to be easily distracted from his goal when any of the three females decide to intervene in his work. Mark's indecent addiction to the temptation is aggravating.

My utility belt attachment still held its maximum of six fragmentation grenades. I feel thankful that I was not issued to join the suicide squad that consisted of its most committed fanatics, as this is one of the many reasons of why I should not be seen as a terrorist to the others. I inadvertently scream my former war cry at my rivals in different situations, even if it once was a phrase used to faithfully unite our people. It is hard for me to ignore this overzealous impulse.

Aria, for me, is too beautiful to lose, yet she puts herself in danger more frequently than the others of men with all those different bombs of various sizes and shapes. Many of her exploits to try to best herself in front of the five of us make her a highly valued target. Wenqian, though being somewhat quiet in her research of technology that is beyond our comprehension, has to test the new materials all by herself, even on the field of battle, to note of their efficiency. She just loves to take things from the enemy and modify or even reverse engineer them herself, regardless of the consequences. She is able to adeptly operate them as if she were an expert as a genius who surprisingly is fascinated by such weapons. She pretty much forgets about her past reflections of the grave threat of these weapons and how they should be destroyed. Both girls are targets of predation, especially in view of Mark when he is under another perverted trance.

Wenqian has sharp reflexes, with her mind being able to link with her body almost instantly, and she just loves to get into any debate and easily win it through her loquaciousness. Whenever I even glance and am easily dumbfounded by the algorithms that she prescribes on the cavern walls, I think that it is something short of poetry, yet it applies only to her work that she never tells us unless if it is of great importance in the acumen of her personal study.

Many of her pictures predict such love as much as the diagrams of her inventions.

Spectra shows no fear in the weapons, mostly because of the fact that she is a ghost, yet she does show some sentimental interest in them. However, she is mostly worried when our enemies manage to bring any weapons with them, as the very encounter with any ominous KRAD presence makes her mind shudder with fear. She has little comprehension of how the things work, for she possesses no great mind, and she does not care about the effects of the weapons on her incorporeal form. The girl is oddly delighted in being dead. Her intangibility, though limited, brings the marginal consequence of using weapons to cause harm in its inactive state. A theory of trying to make weapons through manipulation of the elements or directed energy may bring this oddity to life. Surprisingly, everything that we possess ends up phasing through her. When we try to throw punches and kicks at her, they pass through her or she quickly dodges them.

Her snooty demeanor has constructed a mental obstruct that could be nearing destruction. Surprisingly, the tricks that she contrives are a grave detriment.

She, like the oriental girl, has this passion to strategically use the weapons herself in causing them to disappear along with her and reappear to hit her enemies where they least expect it. Even if the guns are made of metal, and they can phase through objects as well, they can reappear and strike just as hard. For an unknown reason, she does not usually carry the guns. Her preferred weapon is the fan that she never lets us take from her, yet it proves to be very dangerous.

The phantress, regardless, does not want to incite another conflict, so she simply stayed low. I do not know if Mark is able to make his move on her yet.

In her time, she mostly stayed hidden, floating through the caverns, causing little noise. She is prone to emitting her eerie shrieks from time to time.

Now, I had gathered up my same things to wear them again and prepare myself for a potential run with a enemy file or perhaps more. My training was still limited to an extent.

In spite of the circumstances, I had to remember all of it and apply my preternatural instinct.

I encountered my friend George as he stumbled toward me with a tough-guy stance, much to my chagrin as he spun his pistols and made a series of poses while awkwardly hollering.

"Hello" I said, readily aware that I would face a barrage of outlandish southern dialect. I continued to speak to him in a lucid manner.

"Howdy, partner." George gave a smile with bearing his teeth and pushing up his sunglasses.

"How's the survey coming along?"

"It's mighty fine. None of them KRAD folks have come yet. I'm lucky we're safe in here."

"I'm surprised that the enemy hasn't sent in anything after us. Where's the help?"

"Well, uh, mister Lever. " I did not explode at the arrogant mispronunciation of my name.

"Leber."

"Oh, right. Sorry. You see, there may be no help in these here parts."

I try to gasp in horror as the cowboy delivered the horrible news, but easily restrained it.

"Who's coming with us for the scouting party today? I'll be happy to oblige."

"I appreciate the effort, partner, we're good right now. I'll see you later." George walked down the path toward the deep end of the cave. I stepped out a few feet to notice a mirage appearing over the desert sands. I could barely make it out as a group of sinister shadows descended upon us, looking suspiciously like black helicopters. They then materialized with their mechanical exteriors, each one bearing the logo of the KRAD Empire and the eponymous enlightened eye impressed on different portions. I slipped back inside to warn my friends of their arrival, wincing from the machines moments until I could hear their deafening hover, before they could target me or the others with their guns, missiles, and bombs. I instantly knew that we each were helpless against them.


	5. Chapter 4: KRAD Premonitions

At the beginning of the thirteenth day, I became more acquainted with my new friends of HOPE through my conversations with them, even if they were rather awkward. For every time that I was addressed, each of them glorified themselves in some boisterous degree. It largely depended on one's strength in money, power, and intellect, yet they could not predict fate.

It was then that I decided to address the rest of the group, right before the ominous shadows materialized overhead, yet they were too distracted, thus bound to face the danger head on.

I had been the only one that saw the black helicopters as they hovered toward us, waiting for us.

Aside from the talk of their personal accounts of the encounters that they had with the enemy and potential motivations for current events being linked to the enemy, there was absolutely nothing to question about what would happen next. We were all being confined to executing a single task, one that would possibly extend for the rest of our lives. Even if we could learn everything about the enemy and track their every move, I still question with uncertainty if there was any real meaning behind it. We might as well have lost our sanity and our very lives then and there. In the case of the phantress, it might as well be less than a minor impertinence, even if she was dead, yet the lasting memories would still live on inside the ghostly shell. Every night before we went to sleep, we gathered around to tell stories around the fire about the encounters in addition to reveal our own personal aspirations to the entire group. The conspiracy theorist claimed that whoever HOPE worked for was being manipulated by the enemy, and they were heading in the wrong direction the entire time. He spoke about the leader wearing a mask. Our efforts would be directed to destroy the opposition that our enemies wanted to rid out, and we might get blamed, censured, and even executed for our crimes against our purpose. We were pawns in the grand scheme of things, acting on order.

Each of us might as well go insane and start attacking our former masters out of pure rage.

Any accounts of witnessing such a tragedy seemed to be rather inconclusive to all of us.

I was disturbed by the thought of being a puppet, alive and dead, unable to grasp rationality.

To a degree, I imagined the idea as credible, yet I never verbally admitted it to the rest of us.

However, I, along with the rest of the group, immediately dismissed that deceitful dissertation.

Even after my partners were resting, I had briefly risen to sometime watch the phantress float about, feeling surprisingly normal, as she didn't need to sleep, which oddly surprised me. I never wanted to touch her in that state of alacrity, for it would even seem that anything passing through her would end up arousing a majority of her invisible nerves and possibly cause her to screech and assault me with a series of relentless verbal and physical beatings.

In short, the bitch would get very mad at me. I felt satisfied and saddened with every smack.

I did not want to end up like Mark, who would suffer the same fate as me for trying to disturb her. He was smacked about by her left hand, and his face felt cold and red seconds after.

The conspiracy theorist was even laughed at by the spirit as she continued to harass him.

It was a bitter form of embarrassment coming from the most aggressive member of the group.

She may have regarded Mark's pervasive intrusion just as she would a minor enemy soldier.

The phantress showed no regret in her ghastly stare when disappearing and looking back at and then away from the perpetrator as he retreated from his intangible prey that retaliated.

If she even tried to emit a sense of the word sorry, it would be with no change in heart. She learned her aggressive tactics from her servant under her rich lifestyle, demonstrated from attacking her exes. Aria and Wenqian screamed and threatened but never fought Mark back.

Whenever I felt confident in culling a single firearm from George's arsenal of guns to use in target practice, I feel rather disturbed by how he immediately forces me to lose it. He hoarded all the guns for himself and personally kept the most effective ones and left the weakest, pistols and submachine guns, for me to occasionally miss my targets, but I would still remember my training with my intellect and patience. Surprisingly, he was just as effective with the weakest guns as much as the strongest guns, which somewhat baffled my perception of combat. I had not shot or even held a firearm for days prior to my entry in the cave. Whenever I would win the competition by shooting the most targets, I would get assaulted by George's belaboring statements proving how strong he was compared to me. From there, we would race and face each other in close quarters combat. I lost nearly every wrestling match when he thrusted his heaving arms down on me in front of the dirty ground, almost kissing it.

Even if our former conservative society was epitomized by a brutally uncontested violence, I had never partaken in such a practice. The violence from the wars distracted us from finding any professional sport that delineated itself from murdering men in cold blood by crushing them into submission and not killing them purposefully. I would occasionally face Mark, and his tactic involved trying to slip behind me and pin me down by the legs to force me down. Every time I confronted Mark in wrestling, I won nearly every match, because I could strike Mark down onto the mat faster than he could react and overwhelm him by stressing my muscles against his straining arms. The women would occasionally squall among themselves behind the mat and gossip over arguing who would win in the exhibition, screaming vigorously, yet thankfully never intervened. George and Mark and I were all just experiencing the thrill of the fight. Our nature was driven by coming together in a friendly competition, yet we were not feeling or directly inflicting any scars of battle that would likely form in animals.

In addition, George also showed me how to play in the sport of boxing and develop some skill, and he was as much of a training partner as much as a battle-hardy opponent in combat.

I commend George and Leber for their skills in training me, yet unfortunately, George's especially apparent issue of a self-superiority bias had greatly hampered his judgment.

George was especially stuck up in front of me with the brash, sullen demeanor typical of the western cowboy that always ends up getting himself in trouble and putting his life at risk to earn some material reward, whether money, power, or women, and maintain his figure of authority.

However, his fantastical time had long since passed, and it proved to especially burden him.

Whenever I encountered Mark, I felt very disturbed by his obsession for conspiracy theories and the three girls, who he facilitates a spoiled belief of trying to liberate them in adolescence.

One day, I managed to find him kneeling against the wall wearing a fragile hat made of tinfoil.

He was speaking to me rather oddly as I approached him, yet he seemed rather calm.

"Mark, what are you doing?" I questioned as I almost stopped resisting the urge to shudder.

"It's a KRAD conspiracy, man. They're the ones who started the war. They furnished the sterile machines of corporate death. Soldiers are cutting us down. We need to challenge the power structure. We must exercise our revolutionary right We all want to change the world, man. You can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution! Hell no! Stand up for your right!" As soon as he raised his fist and fidgeted with an odd smile, I was repulsed to slowly walk away.

Almost immediately after my encounter with Mark, he would turn his head and smile back at me with some strange expression that I never wished to reciprocate. Mark was very weird to me, as I never understood him. He was trying to connect the actions of our enemy that were performed in the same view of a manipulative, merciless god that wishes to destroy us all out of redemption for our ruined world. None of us had a very holistic approach to the theory of us being controlled by a benevolent celestial dictatorship that dissolutes our well being and security, overseen by a higher power that commands us to be well when we are created sick. We never listened to the prophet's vapid ways that delineate from the idea that any god is a saving figure toward its objects. We did not even have a sense of god in our lives ever since we were brought together by fate. To us, Mark's parallels were easily doubtable at best.

Regardless, we still turned away from his blasphemous statements. My former faith mentality was defiled in front of me, and Mark had the balls to denounce my views with a straight face.

Whenever he tried to fondle with and gloss over my talisman, he would disparage it as a devil's tool. His wicked grimace would show itself again, his mind concocting schemes like a greedy man. As soon as I witnessed that transformation, I was disturbed at the horror of his shadowy face. I noticed an awkwardly strange gait in his stride, his feet pacing on the ground and leaping across the walls with an animalistic locution. He hastened his velocity toward his unkempt dwelling to his hidden precious collection of weapons that he gave names. He would sometime lash out with making moves with his weapons and acting like a show-off. If I even came close to his possessions, he would rudely growl and even hiss at me. The man would utilize abandoned mining equipment from the cave, which actually was a former mine fully depleted of its resources before our enemy used it to crudely bury the disillusioned. Mark tunneled between the sections of the cave during the night with a small light source and no protection. He personally told me, the first time when I came across his personal space, that he wanted to create a tunnel out of there to find a way to escape through a different way. Our house was divided against itself, and it proved to be very difficult for Mark to connect them. He even showed me a rather detailed map that he drew of the cave, accepting my praise. Mark had also managed to bore tunnels through the girls' resting areas during the night. Whenever he felt a weaker ground, he peeped through to notice them as they undressed. After being satisfied, he withdrew from the sanctuary into the isolation of the labyrinth, where everything around him never mattered to him with an absent sense of direction and individuality. The walls were closing in on him, yet the fear already consumed him. Whenever the noise had startled the girls', he would scamper off like a deranged beast without even uttering a word.

There was no way for him to conceal his motivations that were driven by the supernatural.

We never did anything to revoke his privilege to get him to stop those actions. The girls' convinced us that they were robbed, growing suspicious that a creature appeared in the middle of the night to go inside the cave looking for prey. George really made us believe it.

Aria was the only one who asserted the supposition as true, while Wenqian immediately vowed that she would search for truth among the confusion of the superstitions through scientific evidence. She just wanted to expose any trace of the monster's existence to the rest of us. Mark, being the bigoted conspiracy theorist as he is, surprisingly remained rather reticent on the matter, for he knew of what he did. Spectra was blamed for the encounter, yet she elaborated that she couldn't have made the holes if she didn't have the tools to do so.

The ghost would contemptuously lash out at her rivals without any sense of compassion, almost as if she were a lady who squandered all her time on trying to elude herself. Sometimes, it would be rather useful for her to avoid any conversation over confusing subjects. Whenever I tried to speak with her personally, I managed to gradually uncover some meaning underneath her ectoplasmic shell, beyond her obsession for her own aberrant body.

I always suspected her presence by a pungently cold smell that resonated inside the cave.

Communicating with an ethereal simulacrum seemed to be rather strange, yet it had some benefits. I learned of Spectra's rich lifestyle, rather intrigued by how formal everything was.

From what she remembered from the love of luxury, she confided a thought of moderation, yet it was easily disturbed when some of her mischievous motivations had gone too far.

Her eccentric comforts in life had left her very sheltered from the outside world, as if she were becoming confined inside the old family mansion she once lived in that the cave acts like.

She showed me some of her feats that no mortal could perform, which also made me feel proud in the face of her scowls and cringes whenever she leaves her appalling mouth ajar to emit a haughty laugh. Spectra has fabricated a rather unpredictable vision with her unctuous visibility through our perception of her strange behavior. She changes from a respectable lady into a disreputable bitch whenever we hear that ghostly wail shatter our ears with displeasure. It occasionally shifts into a high pitched voice whenever she shows little emotion toward us.

Whenever she scares us, she even goes as far as to distort her shape into that of a monster.

The glaring eyes, the pointed fangs, and the repulsive tongue especially develop these traits.

Nevertheless, the phantress is very snooty toward us mortals, the other five of us in particular, for a reason that we have yet to discover. We have theorized that she believes in wanting to continue her legacy in death by trying to prove her superiority in front of all of us and whatever we may encounter in the future. This has also raised the awareness of Mark in the process, especially in a perverted sort of way when he prefers any women who have a fair status.

When trying to suggest some perverted gesture, Spectra immediately attacks Mark in rage.

I have to almost try to run whenever she floats close to me or Mark, as if she were contriving some manner of sadistically torturing me and my conspiratorial ally with her conniving tricks.

Her personage with the elevated status that she presented prior to her death excites me.

My relationship with the phantress seems to be somewhat dysfunctional, for it is hard to define what constitutes any sense of normalcy when we live on opposite ends of the earth. It is hard to tell whether an immortal being and a man could share any feeling of intimacy.

Whenever I am around Aria, I feel very confused when around a woman who has difficulty trying to be properly raised in a new way of life beyond that of her homeland and a western behaviorism that has greatly extrapolated her vacuous romanticism and consumerism as much as George is. She is easily distracted by simple things and questions about her identity that only apply with simple answers about her general appearance as a woman. Whenever I am around her, she asks me and my friends about trying on clothes and other accessories.

She would expend a group of extravagant dresses and lavish makeup that Spectra may have loved to wear when she was alive and Wenqian would likely offer no comment on such things.

"Hey! Does this dress make me look fat? How about this skimpy outfit? This wrap dress?" Silencing her gossiping mouth was as hard as appeasing a dictator. She was so obsessed with her beauty that it made her more of a moody materialism-driven princess than a friend. I am around a flirtatious girl who is extremely spoiled. Thankfully, without any technological reception, Aria can't call her boyfriend to help us, to which she groans every time she fails.

It is difficult for her to cooperate when she cares about her popularity and social standing.

She has been shut out from the online world, not able to receive the updates she hopes for.

Aside for her quibbling over simple matters, she is distracted by her competitive skills of handling with a variety of explosives. She isn't that much of a weapons specialist at all.

All she does is decide which ones to use and how hard to throw them at the enemy.

She has developed quite an arm for doing this, and she rarely misses her target without the bomb blowing up. In spite of being very girly, she loves action movies and all the explosions.

With her love for consumerism, she is always attracted to miscellaneous product placement.

Sometimes, when she launches a grenade so hard like a ball that it explodes on contact with an object. She is a bit of a tactician, but not at the league of Mark when operating these mad weapons, yet she is prone to being reprimanded by the others for losing her common sense.

It is hard to tell if she is satisfied when around George, who commends her, and Mark, who objectifies her. Mark is prone to innuendo puns about her volatility in regard to her putting out.

George is nice to the explosive expert, congratulating her for her skills in target practice by blasting pieces from buildings and vehicles to build a small barricade close to the entrance.

Aria is fairly good at her aim and can run quickly. It likely makes her worthy of being in a sport.

She tries to impress herself by making scandalous poses around us before and after blasting.

My relationship with Aria seems somewhat dismal in comparison with that of the other girls.

She tries too hard for me and ends up scaring me sometime when she gets close to me.

I clearly do not want her through the cold face that I show in front of her. She does stop this little issue, and from there we can amend the broken bonds of our dysfunctional relationship.

She is greatly disturbed by being hunted by our enemy, whatever the form, as this is likely why she wants to be protected instead of being thrown out in the front lines that she was horribly accustomed to in her prior service. She prefers her liking of range and true firepower.

I may be the only way for allowing Aria to reach her explosive stardom for our dim dystopia.

She is likely the most proudly emotional member of the united nations' elitist entourage.

Easily excited, we try to reach out to her potential in order for our goal to be realized.

The hope is brought by the fire and smoke of war, and for Aria, looks are quote deceiving.

Aria is happy to bring the rain of destruction toward our adversaries, and is always hesitant when necessary like an obedient pleasure girl. Much of her life was gone, but we promise to create a new future for her and her kind when our war against corruption is allegedly won.

There seems to be little hope for us when we are running out of food in the days before the thirteenth. George ends up hoarding the food as much as the weapons, yet it was easy for us to share our food with him. I am sitting around a pack of gruesome barbarians, pulling at the meat like ravenous animals. Wenqian is separating the food with meticulous precision in order to avoid choking herself, while Aria is gorging on her food by stuffing her mouth with much of the fat. I deduce that she has starved for most of the day and wants everything for herself.

When Mark eats, he pretty much does the same thing, except he is a vegetarian, and is still forced to consume meat since it is only thing that we can find out in this fruitless wasteland.

Spectra never grows hungry, yet she still consumes the opaque food that slowly degrades.

I am disturbed by such odd behaviors of sustention that my comrades exhibit on a daily basis.

Aria is still fearful of being stalked by a desert predator in spite of her expertise. She is emotionally frail over dealing with the situation. I feel somewhat bothered by how this abrupt change under the western way of life has pacified her for the difficult future ahead. It is almost as if she was thrown into one conflict after another, a war in herself and the outside world. Spectra is greatly disturbed over losing her friends, but covers it by being snooty. Wenqian is also anxious when not close to any form of technological communication, and it is difficult for her to tell me if whether or not she has found the results in a way that can be understood. Learning all this technological mumbo-jumbo seems to be much of a debacle to own in such a wasteland, where all the problems can be immediately solved through the means of science.

However, there is this penury of spirit that she frequently experiences within herself. She has debilitated her sense of existence through automotive information in various fields, and her loquacious language has limited my chances to understand her. Her anxiety erupts from being afraid and being watched by something that is far superior to her. Without any means of applied science, she is hopeless, for our enemy cannot be fought with sticks and stones.

Nature helps and harms her sense of inner peace to an extent, as the beauty of the world does so much to truly bring reconciliation to one's soul. Being disconnected from the outside world, has rendered Wenqian as prey to the scenery, the essence consuming her from within.

My affectionate relationship with Wenqian is hard for me. It is hard to redirect her awkward feelings. We all feel that her potential lies in her intellect and ability to deal with a problem without being involved unless if it dealt with something of her limited expertise of certain fields that the others and I do not understand anything about what the study and knowledge is.

Everything seems hopeless when we realize that we can't stay in our isolated position forever. Morale was extremely low on the morning of the thirteenth day in the deepest part of the cave.

George told us that there was no hope for us to live in the wasteland, awaiting cannibalism and a descent into madness, which may leave the phantress as the only existing entity.

He had also presented us with a course of action that we had to escape from the cave.

Inside my mind, the horrible images of war with their solemn rhythms made me speechless.

Attempts to boost morale have easily lost by one member disagreeing or not caring.  
>We are growing distrustful of each other with calling foul names. Mark announces to the rest of the group a premonition that we have all been secretly surveyed by machinations of the KRAD Union for our potential weaknesses and are going to be easily taken advantage of. Forceful threats are eventually exchanged that Aria tries to ameliorate out of good will. Wenqian tries to side with Mark, declaring that we must approach this problem with caution.<p>

Violence nearly ensues when our attacks narrowly manage to hit each other. Mark continues to defy George, as he believes we are risking our lives out in the wasteland without any help. He reinforces this notion with his theories of how the enemy has been monitoring and enforcing its security in its periphery that comprises the entire middle east. Aria is shocked to reason with us while Wenqian is too wordy to be understood, and is shut out from any conversation altogether. Spectra ignores us displeasured mortals, presenting her snooty demeanor toward us. I sided with George instead of Mark, whose attributes and temperament may have been the reason that I have difficulty reasoning with any conspiracy theorist at all.

Mark immediately conceded toward George out of arrogance when he had the mettle to tell that he was the one who caused the ruckus. He also had built a secret exit for us to escape.

He aroused a sense of hope in each of us, not being strange as he usually is toward us.

My sense of affinity was immediately put in the back of my head for the duration of the day. I actually had managed to take a short nap from staying up a little late last night before I went to speak to George about the hopelessness of the situation and if the scouting goes well. Any disruption would immediately force us to retreat away in fear, and today was finally the day.

Even if we had some training and sense of precaution along with the proper supplies, some of us wanted to go out like a maverick with our own independent mindset. We were still obligated to kill the perpetrators, but we did not want to bring more attention to ourselves.

For this reason, we have kept our area largely secretive with no clear recognizing that it belonged to us on the outside. All of our belongings and special markings and carvings were found inside the bleak cave, and everything seemed to be perfectly normal and too quiet.

After conversing with George and he moved away from me, I looked up to see the shadows.

I initially thought it was help, and underneath the contours were the KRAD incarnations. Three black helicopters were hovering above us, with their profiles made clear by the logos. It appeared that they were stealth versions, yet I could not tell how much firepower was concealed under the composite panels. I only faintly heard the helicopters as they were closing in on the cave, making me imagine that the machines were specially outfitted with a quiet rotor system.

Immediately at the sight of them, I went to find my friends in the same area I found them in.

My comrades were very disturbed at the sight of the looming threat, the monster at our door.

They, however, they distracted themselves from me, right before I convinced them to listen.

I rushed down back into the pit as fast as I could, not trying to scream and allow my voice to reverberate around the walls in a harrowing echo. Unfortunately, it had to happen for me.

"Hey guys! Look outside! We've got company!"

"What is it?" questioned George as he rested on the ground of the cave. I was quickly panting.

"It's them! Helicopters! Three of them! Come see!" I tried to address the gravity succinctly.

"My god! How did they find us here?" I could not even dare to fathom about that question.

Meanwhile, Mark was panicking while he addressed his prophecies over the KRAD intrusion.

He kept speaking of nonsense until he clung to an unsuspecting female, shuddering in fear.

"Black helicopters! Hovering! The demon was an idea! The demon is awake! They're coming for our asses, man! Oh shit! We're fucked! They're going to take us to a secret base and lock us up! They're monsters, I tell you! The government is coming! Help me! Watch the skies!"

Aria immediately threw herself into a frenzy when an iota of a doubt slipped past her mind.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! I'm getting out of here!" After screaming her lungs out, she was calmed down by George who then whispered to her of his plan that used her as team scout.

She initially declined the offer, but eventually admitted to it when she started to get up.

Spectra immediately decided to show off in front of the men with her haughty laugh.

"I doubt you mortals will stand a ghost of a chance! Not with me around! Ha ha ha!"

She wanted to get the agents in a single spot and find a way to scare them away. She immediately vanished by passing through the walls. I did not know where Spectra went.

There was also the risk of attacking the enemy helicopters or the agents, so we had immediately devised a countermeasure to find the exit as quickly as possible and may have to attack them with brute force by means of our weapons and still risking death by KRAD agents.

Mark immediately belied the notion that we were outmatched already, so he served the purpose to guard the rest of us by reporting of any movement from the enemy agents.

Wenqian quickly found herself dismayed by the possibility of being encountered by them, so she tried to explain the problem with her verbosity. "How dare these unruly ignoramuses try to intrude in the periphery of our natural domain! Such a tragedy will be a minor impertinence, a meagre trifle! We will show those bastardly barbarians! They have mislead their arrogance right in front of our burdened complexity and await defeat at our doorstep! Their ambitions have run them toward their graves! They must all be content with death then! I can assure you that I am ready to be tasked with this endeavor! As you westerners say, let's kick some ass, shall we? My keen observations of your variance all have belied the notion of our success!"

She immediately shifted her personality to something that seemed more comfortable with us.

Wenqian was immediately told to find the exit as quickly as possible, for she has analyzed the cave many times over down to the traces of the rock formations and other pieces of scenery.

Immediately, we all met around the mouth of the cave to see the shadows of the helicopters.

All of us froze in fear at the sight of such machinery and noticed that they had just landed.

It was from there that everything started to deteriorate, to fall apart, to degenerate, at once.

Suddenly, we saw that a gathering of lethal agents in military gear were emerging from the vehicles. The agents donned a black helmet and combat harness more menacing than mine and were joined with a variety of KRAD-produced guns. Their silhouette with their growing shadow made them more like easily obscured angles as they materialized with suspicious intent.

They did not utter a word at all, and only responded with hand movements. Our hearts raced.

Slowly, the silent soldiers lurched toward the mouth of the cave and loaded their weapons.

The people did not seem like men at all to the last of us. We responded on a single thought. All of the members get into their positions to face the force of the infiltrating enemy. Several of them start to panic when the lights from troopers start to fill the cave. In Mark's position, he is just about to blow his cover by spouting his prophecies. I realized that he's screwed when having to face the numbers. I did not have the skill to hold my own in a firefight in the cave.

George reminds the group to not leave his sight as he moves back to get his guns.

Aria's position as forward scout nearly hesitates against the troops inside the cave. We decided to draw further back inside the deepest part of the cave with a weapons cache. The entropy of our mental psyches suddenly forces us to break away from each other for reasons unknown George realizes that some members have gone AWOL and all our guns are missing. George is immediately angry when realizing that the guns were taken away by an unknown presence. Wenqian suspects a shortcut outside the cave, only to find a whole echelon of military vehicles waiting. She was almost ready to have a heart attack and rushed back inside. Aria quickly flees in front of the advancing troops and is being followed by them. It was too late for her, for I could only hear her scream. Mark, worried about the complications of engaging the enemy, hesitates to fire at the agents.

I immediately scampered around different sections of the cave in anticipation. Spectra avoided the men by phasing through the walls, intending to scare them off. The soldiers were silently capturing us one by one by quickly grabbing them, no word or bullet exchanged. Some of the girls start to scream wildly upon being grabbed, forcing the rest of HOPE to act. Immediately, the others start to race toward the mouth of the cave but are caught off guard by the tight security, and try to run toward the landed black helicopters outside. George tries to attack one of the soldiers by wrestling him to the ground but is caught and knocked out. Mark immediately surrenders by dropping his weapon with sarcasm on his face. Wenqian verbally assaults her captor's intelligence, yet the soldier didn't respond at all. Spectra was immediately surrounded, unable to scare them, and was disabled by a strange ectoplasmic gun. I was confronted by the men, trying to reason with my eventual captors, but I failed. I was blinded by a light in the midst of anarchy, and everything I knew about my future was about to change from there. A DREAM was present in our midst, bounded by fate.


End file.
